At the start of the winter season, the infamous “Beijing smog” returned with a vengeance, causing the Beijing and Xi’an air quality control regions to fall behind their winter air quality targets in October-November. Industrial emissions have increased due to a surge in production by polluting heavy industries and failure to meet targets for controlling steelmaking capacity. In the past three months, steel output increased by 10% and cement output by a blistering 14% on year, in the two regions.
Read more in our briefing
Follow progress toward this winter’s air quality targets on our real-time tracker